


The Day After

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [34]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fusion, Gen, Violence, akificlets, black!stiles verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: "Teen Wolf + Avengers, something about Stiles"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Day After

He was already a killer, before Nick Fury came to call. The first time he killed, clearly and deliberately and with forethought and intent? He had smiled at the hunter, played the prey, lured him back to his car, and stabbed him in the throat. The guy had slumped into his car, so Stiles had set fire to the gas tank before walking back up the highway to wash the blood off his hands in the grimy service bathroom. He pulled on his red hoodie and headed home to have dinner with his dad.

His hands hadn’t shaken, he hadn’t thrown up. He’d thought about it enough that the man’s death was clearly his only viable option, and he was at peace with his decisions. He’d gone inside, kicked off his shoes, and met the woman his father had brought home for him to meet. The calm that had eluded him since his mother had died stayed with him for the rest of the night.

That was then. Sixteen seems a long time ago now. His father had remarried that woman in the kitchen, Grace, who ran the bakery in town, and was content enough. The wolves who he’d killed for had solidified their pack and stopped being such a target, had married and had little pups and quiet little lives of their own.

And Stiles? Stiles had told Nick Fury ‘yes.’

Now he was somewhere in South Moscow, tied to a chair as a guy in General’s brass and reeking of cheap vodka was monologuing. Outside, in the square, the clock chimed the hour, and Stiles’ remembered that today, in Beacon Hills, it was his dad’s birthday. He made a mental note to call him later. But first, he had to finish this interrogation. He looked up through his lashes and reeled the General in. “Vy deystvitelʹno dumayete, chto ya dovolʹno?”

It wasn’t until he was waiting to board his flight to India that Stiles got a chance to call his dad. He found a quiet corner and dialled through the digital repeater to spoof the call. “Happy birthday,” he told him fondly, listening to the sounds of his past. “What have I been up to?” He smiled and watched the SWAT team push their crate of gear up the ramp to the plane. “Oh, nothing interesting. How about you?”

* * *

Stiles had bruises on his bruises. His head was thumping, centred around the cut just above his hairline, but the docs had cleared him of any concussion. There were several hairline fractures in his hands and feet, from pummeling against the armour of the Chitari.

And Coulson was dead.

Hawk wasn’t wrong. This wasn’t like Budapest. This was so much worse.

They’d seen the Asgardians off, in a flash of sparkly light that was so beyond any magic he’d ever dealt with. Stiles picked at a ragged nail and wondered what now. Stark was back in the Tower, making new armour and a new fortress. Stiles had spent enough time around the man to realize it was his idea of a default state. Captain was in his room; perhaps Stiles should check on him. After all, the guy had pretty much been frozen in one war and defrosted just in time for the next one. But Stiles also knew that Cap would probably welcome snooping right now as gracefully as Banner. They were both in the Tower, in the spaces Stark had made for them. That might have to be good enough for now. And Hawk…

Kate flopped down next to him on the sofa. Stiles had appreciated from the get-go that Kate had no problems being near Stiles; everyone else, consciously or not, gave him a wide berth.

Kate didn’t care that Stiles had spent half his life turning himself into as much an ultimate weapon he could be while still being completely human. She just reached over and squeezed his neck gently, her palm warm and her fingers calloused against his bare skin. Stiles only just managed to resist pressing gently into the touch.

Apart from his dad, being touched, easily and casually, was pretty much the only thing he missed from his old life.

“What’s up, buttercup?” she asked, smiling, the cut along her cheek creasing. Her bruises were already blood dark and blooming. Stiles knew if he touched them, pressed his fingers on every point, they’d feel hot and aching, just like his.

“Nothing much, little duck,” he said instead, tilting his head back onto the rest of the sofa so he wouldn’t rest it on her shoulder. Years and missions had eroded a lot of the boundaries that Stiles usually put between himself and the people he worked with.

But Kate Bishop was always the exception. “So,” she said, putting her feet on the low table and slouching down, mirroring his posture. “That happened.”

“And the whole world saw.” Stile exhaled loudly as he finally named the worry that had been nagging at him. He’d always, by inclination and training, worked in the darkness. Despite the chaos, hundreds of cameras had recorded the battle; he’d seen glimpses of it on the screens in the helicarrier when they’d reported back.

Kate nudged him with her elbow. “I think we’ve been blown. Fury must be pissed.”

On the table, Stiles’ phone buzzed, rattling against a mug that had been left there. Stiles considered leaving it there, but the noise was irritating. He caught it with his toes, and tossed it into his own lap in one flick of his ankle. It made the stressed ligaments give a little twinge, but it was worth it not to have to bend forward. He froze when he saw the code on the screen.

Kate patted his shoulder. “I’m gonna find food, or find Stark and make him order us food. Come find us when you’re hungry.”

Stiles nodded and accepted the call. “Hey dad.”

* * *

Beacon Hills seemed tiny, and old, worn in the way antiques are worn, with love and varying attention. Stiles rolled through town in his rental, window down, watching his memories pass by. There was a pickup game of lacrosse going on the field, and Stiles watched it, waiting for his light to change. In his nose, he could almost detect the scent of old sweat and leather and the string of the nets.

The house seemed tiny, paint peeling off the base of the mailbox, weeds peeking through a crack in the driveway. Stiles turned off the engine and took a deep breath. He hated, a little, that his body was reacting like this was the start of another mission, another lied about life.

But not enough to make himself stop.

He grabbed his small duffle off the passenger seat, tugging his phone out of the side pocket. The text was curt, but Kate had made him promise to let her know he’d got in safely.

It wasn’t clear what they were any more – agents, or Avengers, or something in between – but they still had each others’ backs.

The door opened as Stiles climbed the porch steps. His dad’s hair was mostly grey, and there were creases around his eyes, and a tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there before. “Hey, kiddo,” he said, voice creaking slightly. He opened his arms.

Stiles stepped straight into the hug.

Grace didn’t hug him, but did leave some food on the table before retreating upstairs. His father poured them two fingers of whiskey each and sat across the table. “So,” he said. “Not an inspector for a multinational, huh?”

Stiles ran his fingers around the tumbler. “No.” He had made dictators and psychopaths do his bidding in a single word, but he couldn’t play his own father like that. Didn’t mean he couldn’t hate how threatened he felt, sitting here, drinking whiskey out of his mothers’ glasses.

His dad tossed back his drink. “Tell me the truth, Stiles. Please. What do you do?”

Stiles didn’t know if was because of the please or in spite of it. “I used to kill people. Now, I’m not so sure.”


End file.
